The Empty Warrior (56 page)

The man directly in front of O’Keefe fell to his knees at the sight before them. O’Keefe grabbed him roughly by the collar and hoisted him to his feet, but not before the business end of a whip bit into the man’s back. A second strike caught O’Keefe just beneath his left shoulder, tearing open the thin jacket he had salvaged from Sefforia and ripping into his skin. He winced, but kept moving forward without either turning or crying out. Croaked curses erupted from the creatures behind him. He ignored them, and kept walking steadily down the gauntlet toward the arched exit cut into the far wall of the mammoth cavern. As they approached it, he could see that the cut in the rock was an entrance to a tunnel that was split down the middle by a chain link fence that reached from floor to ceiling. The men in the front were being channeled into the right side of the passageway.

In only a few moments O’Keefe was past the last of the reptiles. Behind him, he could hear the clanking of treads and the roar of diesels as the lizard things rearranged themselves to unload the next container. His eyes quickly adjusted to the relative dimness of the tunnel, and just as quickly another start of trepidation shuddered through him. The column of men was passing between two canines, one sitting against the right wall and one with its thick black coat pressed against the center fence. The dogs were huge, nearly the size of horses, with jaws that could easily crush the chest cavity of any man in the line. As O’Keefe, the last of this batch of prisoners, passed between them, both got to their feet and fell in behind the men, padding slowly down the passageway at the rear of the column.

O’Keefe looked back, and one of the dogs bared its teeth and snarled menacingly. He glared at the animal, and despite the fear-driven pounding of his pulse said loudly, “Eat shit, dog!” He turned back to face forward and continued down the corridor, not entirely sure the big canine would refrain from sinking its teeth into the back of his neck.

O’Keefe’s contemptuous comment was the first utterance anyone had made since the men had stepped out of the cargo carrier. As nothing untoward occurred, in short order others began to chatter amongst themselves, most of them fearfully. The men all wanted to know where they were being taken and what was to happen to them. One man tearfully begged for his life, apparently unaware there was no one to plead to. Whoever the whimpering man was, he repeated his whining entreaty over and over until O’Keefe wanted nothing more than to throttle him.

One voice, sure and strident, abruptly rose above the rest. “You’re not going to die,” its owner assured the men. “If the Vazileks only wanted to kill you they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of bringing you here. Right now all they want is to clean us up and give us new clothing. Just keep walking, and try not to be afraid.”

To O’Keefe’s astonishment the speaker was the same man whom he had lifted from the floor of the dock. He had hardly seemed like someone who would assume a leadership role, yet now he spoke with a commanding certitude. For the first time O’Keefe gave him a good study and it was plain merely from watching his back as he trudged along that he was quite different from the other prisoners. The others; though filthy, sore, and terrified; still exhibited the essential haleness that O’Keefe had by this time come to accept as a fundamental Akadean trait. But the man before him was bone thin and heavily scarred. Each step he took seemed laborious, while the outline of his bent spine showed clearly through the thin fabric of his shirt. Patches of scalp showed through thinning hair that was streaked with gray.

O’Keefe slightly quickened his pace until he came abreast of the man. He took his left arm lightly, just above the elbow, and pulled him a little more erect. “Hey, fella,” he said, “Are you all right? You don’t look like you belong with this crowd.”

The man turned his face to O’Keefe for the first time. His unkempt, salt and pepper beard was not quite thick enough to hide his sallow complexion or the sunken cheeks that framed his hooked and narrow nose. His heavy lidded brown eyes seemed tired but flashed a gleam of quick intelligence. As he smiled wistfully, crow’s feet appeared at the sides of his face. He leaned closer to O’Keefe and spoke in a conspiratorial tone.

“Well I’ve got a news flash for you mate,” he said. “I’m a damn sight closer to fitting in here than you are. Where’re you from, anyway?”

If the situation had been less dire O’Keefe would have laughed, but instead he hesitated, then thought,
What the hell? Secrets clearly didn’t make any difference at this point.
“I’m an Earther,” he said.

“What? An aberrant?” the man asked, looking at O’Keefe first incredulously, then searchingly. “Yes, by the Rock, you are. You’ve that barbarian look about you for certain, not that that is a bad thing by any means. I certainly mean no offense, as I fancy someone of your size and ancestry would be a good man to stay on the right side of. And I won’t trouble you to tell me how you got here or how you can speak the language, as I’m sure it’s a very long story. The name’s Steenini, Bartle Steenini,” he said, grinning widely and offering his right hand. O’Keefe took it eagerly, and found the man’s seeming frailty belied by the strength of his grip.

“Hill O’Keefe,” he said. “It’s good to meet you, Bart.” And it was. O’Keefe already liked the man immensely for only having known him a few seconds. Steenini scowled momentarily, perhaps at O’Keefe’s presumptive familiarity in shortening his name, but then seemed to accept the moniker with a shrug as logic dictated that the exigency of their current plight overrode any miscarriages of etiquette.

“Thanks for the hand out there,” he said. “The beasties didn’t nick you too badly did they?” As he spoke, Steenini leaned backward to get a quick look at the wound on O’Keefe’s shoulder blade.

“It smarts a little,” O’Keefe replied, “but I think I’ll live. What is this place?”

Steenini shook his head and sighed. “This, my friend, is Ashawzut, a prison planet, or a mining colony in the official parlance. This is one of the places where the Vazileks send their most recently captured slaves. One either dies here or learns to serve his masters.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get the impression it was Club Med. How is it you’re so well informed?”

Steenini, for a moment scrunching his features in puzzlement at the Terran reference, replied quickly enough once he decided that it made no difference what a Club Med was. “This is my second time through, and I’m here for good, I’m afraid. I fooled them the first time. I made them think I was ready to do anything they wanted if they would only take better care of me. You see, despite some rather unorthodox views that kept me more or less banished to a more open-minded colony just off the outer rim, my abilities were still rather well regarded in the scientific community before the Vazileks got their hands on me. They of course found out who I was, and when they were convinced that I could be a benefit to them, they took me out of here and put me to work in weapons research.” Steenini lowered his voice to the barest whisper. “I surreptitiously coded a reactor overload into some of their software and blew one their newest ships to space dust during trials. For some reason I was under the illusion that if they could not trace the flaw back to me, I would be safe. I should have known better. They simply tortured everyone who had anything to do with the project, and when they still could not find the responsible party, they loaded us all on to outward bound freighters on their way to pick up Union prisoners. I guess they figure someone will talk after some time spent in the mines, but I’m not telling and nobody else knows. I probably shouldn’t have told you, but I’d bet my balls that you’re trustworthy. I’m a good judge of character, and I wouldn’t take you for a snitch. It’s not every man that would reach out instinctively to help a bloke he’s never met. And besides that, I figure an aberrant won’t react to enslavement any better than I have.”

“You’re right about that. I haven’t even met a Vazilek yet, and I already hate the bastards.”

Steenini laughed, an action that shortly collapsed into a coughing fit that wracked his chest. “You think you hate ’em now, just wait an hour or two,” he rasped, as soon as his hacking paroxysm subsided enough for him to speak.

“What do you mean?” O’Keefe asked him anxiously.

“I mean
her
.” He waved off O’Keefe’s quizzical look. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You’ll just have to see her for yourself.”

O’Keefe didn’t like the answer, but decided it would be counterproductive to pressure the man. “So where are we headed now?” he asked instead.

“It’s just like I said. There’s an orientation facility at the end of this tunnel. They’ll take our clothing and personal effects, then run us through the showers, shave our faces and heads, and issue us our little uniforms. Then we’ll be introduced to
her
.” As he had before, he placed a special, ominous emphasis on the pronoun
her
.

O’Keefe desperately wanted explanations, but a more important consideration was suddenly pushed to the forefront of his mind. There was the matter of the pistol still nestled in the holster under his jacket. If he did not find a place to hide it before they emerged into the orientation facility, it would surely be confiscated. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Steenini, then pushed his way past the men in front of him, putting some bodies between himself and the dogs. The men made way. They had not the will left even to complain as he shoved them roughly aside. O’Keefe looked ahead and could see brighter light. They were reaching the end of the tunnel.

Scanning the wall as he walked, he discerned any number of fissures running through the rock, but none were big enough to accept the pistol. There! Finally he saw a cleft large enough to suit his purpose. He pushed his way over to the wall, then looked ahead, trying to gauge the distance from the tunnel exit. He then quickly removed the holster, pushing it and the gun as far into the crack as he could manage. Stepping back from the wall, while the other men flowed slowly around and past him, he committed the configuration of the cache to memory. Steenini came up on his right, and O’Keefe turned to walk at his side.

“What was that all about?” the scarred little man asked.

“I needed to stash something. Maybe I’ll get a chance to get it back later.” He did not care to elaborate any further. “What was that you were saying about a woman?”

“It’s too late to talk now. But when the time comes, stay off the front row.”

O’Keefe had no time to ponder his new friend’s cryptic comment as they were only a few yards from the end of the tunnel. The stink of diesels, which had faded somewhat as they had marched away from the docking hangar, was again becoming more pronounced. There were more of the lizard machines ahead. He and Steenini were confronted with several immediately upon their egress from the passage. Whips cracked over their heads.

“Strip!” one of the reptiles commanded. “Throw raggedy filth in cage.” O’Keefe quickly removed his jacket and shirt and tossed them into the fenced square the lizard had referred to. It was already near to overflowing with a noxious mixture of filthy apparel.

When he was fully naked he turned to follow Steenini into the only exit from the large room that was not blocked by lizard guards, another arched opening in the opposite wall. What lay beyond it was obscured by a wall of steam that issued from the entrance and drifted up to the high ceiling. The vapor deposited copious amounts of condensation there, covering the rock and forming into droplets that fell steadily to the floor, turning the dust that appeared to coat everything in the complex into a film of gray mud around the threshold of the archway.

O’Keefe walked into the opening and found himself in a passageway where jets of scalding, soapy water hit him from every angle. The water carried away the grime and filth that covered him and disappeared down grate covered drains. Some twenty yards into the passage the water suddenly became clear and icy cold. By the time O’Keefe stepped out on the far side of the shower he was shivering.

He looked up to see several men—Akadean prisoners who were dressed in dirty, gray tank top tee-shirts and drawstring trousers—throwing out smallish, well-worn towels. Though not quite emaciated, the men’s physical state was nothing like that which O’Keefe had become accustomed to their people exhibiting. They had deteriorated to a state that he estimated was about half way between his own still hearty constitution and Steenini’s bent and withered form. Their eyes appeared dull and lifeless, their skin dry and caked with dust. They tossed out the towels mechanically and silently, as if they had been deconstructed and then rebuilt as matching automatons programmed only for the task at hand. Their looks reinforced that impression. Although their builds and facial features differed slightly from one to the next, the skin tone and eye color of each was the same monotonous brown, while closely cropped hair that curled into ringlets covered their heads. Absent a close inspection they all could have been mistaken for clones of one another. O’Keefe dried himself hurriedly and tossed the towel into another fenced holding pen that was piled high with the threadbare rags.

There were more dogs. Growling fiercely and snarling at any who moved too slowly, they shepherded the men assembly line fashion into another long, high, arched chamber that had been cut into the solid rock. The next station on their route was a scanner of some sort. There were several of them. Each was a narrow, metal tunnel of a machine about six feet long that reminded O’Keefe of airport security. Its interior was perfectly smooth, but its outer surfaces were covered with conduit, small lights, and assorted electronic gear whose function he could only guess at. The men filed through the machines one at a time at the behest of a laconic and indifferent Akadean operator whose vocabulary seemed to consist solely of the words
next
and
go
. Most men proceeded onward after the scan but some were pulled aside by Akadean attendants and roughly cavity searched. A few of those were hauled away down a side passage and away from the others. O’Keefe did not see any of them return. At last it was his turn to be sent down the length of the machine. It buzzed and hummed as he made his way through, but it apparently found nothing of interest as he was waved on by the hollow-eyed Akadeans who waited on the other side.